Miller County’s location in southwest Arkansas made it the “Gateway to the Southwestern United States” through its rivers, stagecoach roads, and Native American trails. It is an area of flat plains and gentle hills with an abundance of pine and hardwood forests. The northern and eastern border is marked by the meandering Red River, and the climate is moderate with a growing season of 254 days. The rich soil grows cotton, sorghum, rice, corn, and other crops.

Pre-European Exploration through European Exploration and Settlement People have lived in the Miller County area for at least 10,000 years. Over 400 archaeological sites known in the county attest to Native American settlement and use. Early records suggest that the remnants of the Hernando de Soto expedition may have passed through Miller County and set up camp near present-day Spring Lake Park in Texarkana, Texas. (The expedition’s chronicles describe an area that could be Spring Lake Park, but it is not further identified.)

Louisiana Purchase through Early StatehoodBy 1778, the Caddo Indians, who had inhabited the area, left their towns in the Great Bend region of southwest Arkansas and retreated downstream to live near friendly French colonial authorities and nearby Caddo friends and kinsmen in what today is northwest Louisiana. In the eighteenth century, this area was claimed by the Quapaw, although their main villages were along the Arkansas River. Miller County was part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Interest in settling in this part of the state was slow to develop because the U.S. government had listed the area as “swamplands,” unfit for settlement, under the Swamp Lands Act of 1850. The Great Raft, a tangle of floating timber and other debris, stretched for miles along the Red River, making travel difficult or impossible until it was snagged out permanently by Henry Shreve.

The legislature established Miller County on April 1, 1820. At the time, it included most of present-day Miller County and parts of Bowie, Cass, Delta, Fannin, Franklin, Hopkins, Hunt, Lamar, Morris, Red River, and Titus counties in Texas. (Miller County was part of the disputed “Horse’s Head” area of northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas, too far north for Mexico to control well and too far west for the United States to control well; while it was technically under Mexican jurisdiction, it truly was not under any country’s control.) The county was named for territorial governor James Miller, a native of Temple, New Hampshire; the first county seat was in the John Hall house in the Gilliland settlement. The county’s establishment was problematic because Mexico claimed much of east Texas. Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, and the first Miller County was abolished two years later. Governor James Conway said the easiest solution would be to abolish the county and remove its records to a “more patriotic” area—that is, in the United States.

Until 1874, area settlers found themselves included in Lafayette County. The first Miller County had five post offices by 1835: at Jonesborough, McKinneyville, Mill Creek, Spanish Bluffs, and Sulphur Fork. The Southeast provided the largest number of settlers to the area during this time as disheartened citizens of the old “Confederacy” moved west after the Civil War.

One of the county’s earliest towns, Rondo, east of Texarkana, was founded before the war by Dr. L. C. Cully on land originally owned by James Sanders Trigg. Trigg, who had been educated in France, named the town after the French game of chance, rondeau.

Civil War through ReconstructionDuring the Civil War, Miller County’s citizens volunteered for several Confederate units: the Bright Star Rifles, the Confederate Guards, the Hempstead Hornets, and the Prairie DeRoane Guards. Parts of these units merged into the Fourth Arkansas Infantry. Another company, founded in 1862 under Captain William Readick Kelley, became part of the Twentieth Arkansas Infantry. While no battles took place in the county, several fortifications were built as a precaution.

Times changed with the coming of the railroad. Beginning in the 1850s, the Cairo and Fulton Railway was surveyed through Arkansas and received several land grants, including those in Miller County. The Texas and Pacific Railway was building toward the area from the west, and eventually the railways met at Texarkana. Each rail company sold town lots, creating the largest city in the county in the winter of 1873 and spring of 1874; the Texas and Pacific sold town lots on the Texas side, and the Cairo and Fulton sold town lots on the Arkansas side. The combined population of Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas, reached 2,500 by 1880 and grew rapidly until the 1960s, when it reached 31,686.

Post Reconstruction through the Gilded AgeMiller County was reestablished in 1874, with Texarkana as county seat. From 1874 to 1900, the county’s population boomed, mainly in response to the railroad and the influx of immigrants and settlers. By 1900, the population was 17,558, but it remained a predominantly rural county; it had 1,967 farms in 1900. Texarkana, the largest city, provided many employment opportunities with railway companies, dry goods stores, grocery stores, and other retailers.

Early Twentieth CenturyDuring World War I, soldiers from the county were drafted or volunteered for service, and women volunteered to help with the Red Cross Canteen at Union Depot in Texarkana. Residents remembered many trains traveling through Texarkana loaded with soldiers. The destinations were training bases or ports where the soldiers would ship out for Europe. Most towns in the county have memorial markers in the city square or in cemeteries.

Little history on the effects of the Depression on Miller County has been recorded. A Works Progress Administration (WPA) office was located for a time in the Victory Hotel in Texarkana.

World War II through the Faubus EraWorld War II boosted Miller County’s economy with two manufacturing facilities just over the state line: the Red River Army Ammunition Plant and the Lone Star Army Ammunition Depot. Both employed thousands of Arkansans, Louisianans, and Texans in the war years and beyond. Thousands of Miller County residents served overseas.

Interstate 30 was completed through the area in the early 1960s, and it was a double-edged sword. It brought many new businesses because of increased traffic and more efficient transportation of products to market. On the other hand, it took business away from Texarkana’s downtown, causing merchants to create a “new town” along the I-30 corridor.

Modern EraSince 1968, downtown buildings in Texarkana have deteriorated and businesses have closed. Perhaps the most vibrant businesses are the jails, law offices, and bail bondsmen’s shops. Smaller towns such as Doddridge, Fouke, Garland, Genoa, and Spring Bank have continued to shrink while Texarkana’s city limits are pushing out on all sides. The Texarkana Chamber of Commerce noted that the city’s metropolitan area—comprising residents and people who drive into Texarkana from the four-state region to shop or do business—contained more than 300,000 people in 2005.

I-30 negatively affected passenger railroad traffic. In past decades, as many as nine railway companies served the area, using Texarkana’s Union Depot as the main station. Today, freight trains provide most of the railway traffic.

Most of the county remains rural with farms that produce rice, soybeans, corn, other vegetables, and fruits. Texarkana has many motels and restaurants. Most have space for conventions or regional meetings that generate county revenue. Texarkana is a Main Street Arkansas historic city, and efforts are underway to reclaim the downtown.

Continued growth and business expansion are due, in part, to the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce’s economic development goals: business retention and expansion, diversity in the economic base, continuous building of a skilled and dedicated work force, and partnerships with business leaders that will produce a regional approach to economic development.